Search and Research #164

Well, I meant to have this up yesterday, but when I sat down to post it, I remembered I hadn't yet scanned the strip (I usually scan the strips right after I finish them). I finished this one a few days ago, but wound up being busy afterwards I guess. Anyway, here is the penultimate (always wanted to use that word!) strip in the "SCOM tells a story about working in the Library of Congress" storyline.

Strip #165 will be a color strip and it will have 14 panels, so it'll take me a little longer than usual to complete. I'm going to try and finish it before my day job gets crazy in preparation for the beginning of the fall semester. If that happens, it will be the most quickly completed color strip in recent memory!

 - eli

Search and Research #163

Still exploring the intricacies of dramatic lighting. I mentioned before that I've never really drawn in this style before although I've long admired the look of that noir drawing style. In the last panel I figured that if the lights when down, SCOM's screen would be the only thing giving off light, and tried to use that to inform my lighting decisions.

You'll also notice in panel three that I've employed an interesting little lesson I learned a while ago: The expression of a character speaking must match the emotion of the last thing he says in a panel, not the first. People tend to read the word bubbles and then look at the pictures, so, if you don't match the expression to the last emotion, the pictures won't make sense. I learned that back in Search and Research 93 where SCOM discovers his missile has been replaced by a telescope. His face matches the first part of what he says rather than the last part, and the panel just winds up being weird because he looks mortified rather than slyly pleased. Ok, that little tip is free. Enjoy!

 - eli

Search and Research #162

Jason and I decided it would be fun to sort of explore some of SCOM's early days at the Library of Congress, and I wanted to try to make his "flashback" scenes distinct by drawing them in a noir style, where there is only black and white with very dramatic lighting. I've always loved that style, starting with the Tracer Bullet stories in Calvin and Hobbes. I've never been very good at it, but I thought that drawing SCOM's angular shape would be easier than trying to do the organic human shapes. Boy was I wrong! It turns out that it takes practice, no matter what you're drawing. As a result, I spent a while trying to develop the look of what I have now come to call "SCOM noir". It took about a month of off and on experimentation. Hopefully subsequent strips will easier for me now.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy what we have planned.

eli

Search and Research #161

Over the past few years of drawing this strip, I've noticed that sometimes I'll sit down to draw a strip and everything just flows, from the clarity of the idea in my mind to my ability to draw it. Other times, I'll have a clear idea in my head, but when it comes to actually drawing it I seem to do more erasing than actual drawing. This strip fell into the latter category. It also doesn't help I've been sick for the past few days. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy!

Search and Research #160

Well, technically it's still Monday (at least in USA Central Standard Time), but last week was a pretty busy week. My friend Ryan Nelson came up with the idea that spawned this strip, and since he's about to graduate with his masters degree, and since he's been bugging me about it since he first told me his idea, this is for you Ryan. Congratulations, and hope you enjoy Japan! - eli

Search and Research #159

Jason and I had originally intended this strip to be a Valentine's Day strip, but weren't able to make the timing work, so the idea has been hanging around for quite a while. I'm glad we were able to find a way to put the idea to use. When SCOM begins reciting the poem, it's because Boük is controlling him since Boük can control technology with his mind. I tried to indicate that this is what's happening with SCOM's surprise and the instant screen change, along with the "bzzt!" sound effect, but I had a hard time trying to think about how to definitively show that this is what was happening. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on how well that came across. Enjoy!

Search and Research #158

I'm not sure how anyone else feels, but I'm often tempted to pretend to use the handheld scanner as a phaser from Star Trek. That's where this strip came from. I guess I'll never be too old to pretend to play with laser guns. :0) Enjoy!

Search and Research #157

There are few things more annoying to me in the library than watching students "fix" a printer or some other piece of equipment. I mean, I'm right there at the desk, they can see me...why wouldn't they ask for help? However, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit I'm guilty of the same thing when I'm outside the library, and I encounter stuff malfunctioning...paper towel dispensers for instance. I have a bit of expertise in how paper towel dispensers work, so if I find one jammed, I have no problem opening it up and fixing it. I'm sure the folks in charge of them would be equally as frustrated. Anyway...enjoy!

Search and Research #156

Ok, here we go with the next strip. Drawing this strip was like hanging out with friends you haven't seen in a long time, good and nostalgic at the same time. Enjoy!

Search and Research #155

Man, this is only the fifth strip I've posted this year. I can't believe that I still have viewers who are interested in what's happening over here. I'm super grateful to you all though! Thanks so much for sticking with the strip!

This one took a while because we kept changing the script for it. Sometimes the writing for this thing comes easily, and sometimes it requires a lot of rewriting and revising before we're really happy with it. We hope you enjoy!

- eli

*edit*
In retrospect, now that I've posted it up, I should have added some color to Marc's shirt, because I chose to fully color Elsie's dress. He looks like he's wearing a white shirt....oh well. 

Search and Research #154

Welcome back to the strip everybody! I appreciate you all hanging in there with me. This particular idea stems from me being heavily into Star Trek: The Next Generation, and really not being able to get into Star Trek: Voyager all that much. My co-writer, Jason, would appreciate me saying that these opinions are my own, and do not reflect the opinions he personally holds. We'll be happy to host a spirited Star Trek discussion in the comments, if anyone should care to weigh in. Enjoy!

Search and Research #153

I'm back! Hooray for a new strip! My goodness, it has been a while, but I've been super busy with art commissions, and doing other art related stuff. It has been great! In the meantime, the blog has been getting crazy numbers of views per week, for which I'm grateful but also sort of curious as to why that's happening all of a sudden. I'm all for it!

Hopefully our next strip will be up sooner, since my friend and co-writer Jason seems to be having a little bit more free time to help write scripts. He's really the one who is able to take my ideas and actually turn them into fully fleshed-out scripts, and I'm always very hesitant to just write this strip by myself. It almost always suffers without his input, so I've been waiting until he had time. Until the next one, enjoy!

- Eli

Search and Research #152

Ah...yes. It's nice to get back to the blog. Everything is just as I left it. Well, again, it's been a while since I drew a strip, but this time it's been because I've been busy with commissioned work. That is a good problem for me to have, as doing artwork full time is a goal I'm trying to work towards, but I do miss these characters and I'm glad when I have these breaks where I can get back to the strip. No promises about the next one either...we'll just have to see what happens. In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of the more recent work (and some older work as well), here's a link to a gallery: http://kindgentleman.deviantart.com/gallery/. Enjoy!

Search and Research #151

Well my friends, I'm back with a new strip! Between holiday art commissions (I love actually getting paid to draw!!), the American holidays, and the onset of electronic reserve requests at work (my primary library job) I haven't had the time or energy to draw another strip until now. It felt good to get back to these characters again. I had to reteach myself how to draw them and how I lay out my comic strips and stuff after such a long absence. I mean, I haven't actually drawn them since last September! Anyway, thanks to those of you who have stuck with this comic strip through the long absences between content. Enjoy!

Search and Research #150

Whew! It's nice to finally get this up! My co-writer Jason and I wrote this whole story arc out back in April, but this final part of the story fell during the busiest time of my entire year...beginning of the fall semester at the college at which I work. That lasted about a month an a half, at which point I had penciled about half of this "super-sized" strip. I finally got myself together and finished penciling and inking this strip. Then I started getting other artwork commissions which demanded my free time, which left me sort of scrambling to do what coloring I could during my lunch break at work. There is so much work that goes into coloring that bits and pieces just doesn't really allow you to make much progress on the overall piece. Anyway...I'm finally done with this one, and it's my great pleasure to show it to you, not only because I think that it's one of the better jobs I've ever done drawing and coloring, but because it's the epic conclusion of the "Evil Copier Saga!!" The image above is sort of bigger than usual for the strip because I want you to have to opportunity to see the coloring details. Below, I'm posting a smaller resolution image in case the one above is really too big to comfortably view on your phone or whatever. Enjoy!

Smaller version:

Introducing...Marc Record

Well, now we come to Marc. The first character I created for the strip. I believe that it was my wife who suggested the name, but I can't completely remember. She deals with marc records more than I do (although if you've ever dealt with one, you're ahead of me) and I thought it was a great name. It started my penchant for naming characters based on what they do (with the exception of Opal and Randall) in an effort to appear clever. He's also the only character who has an established last name. Marc works at the service desk, and I see him sort of as a library assistant. I'm not sure if he has an office or not; we haven't seen it if he does, but I haven't really made up my mind about that. He is basically an outlet for the things I think in my head during interactions in the library. I've given him some of my personal interests, such as being a fan of sci-fi and action movies and tv, and his preference for corduroy pants and collared, short-sleeve shirts. That's my typical winter work wardrobe. In color, I typically color his shirt as maroon, which is the color of my favorite shirt. My co-writer Jason has done a very nice job of expanding his personality, and making his snarky humor funny instead of mean sounding. I have to give him a lot of credit for helping me get a good grasp on what his character should be. I've really enjoyed developing his relationship with SCOM, and at this point I think of them as a team, and their relationship as sort of the heart of the strip, as it should be with any librarian and their technology.

Search and Research #148

Ever gotten about halfway done drawing a comic strip and realized that you wrote too much stuff to fit into a normal sized strip, and you didn't want to have to redraw it all on a bigger paper? Me too! As a result, I really had to choose my angles and shots carefully to show the stuff that was important, which took me a lot of time...I had to sort of leave it for a while and come back with (hopefully) fresh eyes every now and then. I decided to sort of darken in the background when showing Marc and the copier so that the other elements of the panels would stand out. I hope this strip makes sense visually...I really felt more cramped than usual. I draw these (with the exception of the big color ones) on normal 8.5x11" paper, and sometimes that's just doesn't feel like enough room. Ok, well, enough of me rambling. Enjoy!

Search and Research #147

This is a day of celebration! No, not just because there is a new strip, despite some humidity related delays. On this day, my friend, and co-writer, Jason Watts has welcomed his son Tobin Joshua into the world at 8:03 this morning. Tobin is Jason's third child, and first son. Let's all congratulate Jason, and celebrate with him! Also, please enjoy this continuation of "The Evil Copier Saga".

Search and Research #143

We now bring you the next chapter in the blockbuster "Evil Copier" saga. I suppose it's pretty short for a chapter, but I don't want to rewrite the beginning, so we'll just have to go with that. I'm particularly pleased with the shot of SCOM running here. I always have a sort of difficult time drawing him at angles (despite the fact that he's essentially a box) but I really pushed myself to make this work. Enjoy!

Search and Research #142

As the saying goes, "Beware the copier which has leverage!" Enjoy!